Links for 17th March 2009

"it’s even more important for us to come to grips with the fact that the system in peril is not a natural one, or even one that we should be attempting to revive and restore. The thing that is dying—the corporatized model of commerce—has not, nor has it ever been, supportive of the real economy. It wasn’t meant to be. And before we start lamenting its demise or, worse, spending good money after bad to resuscitate it, we had better understand what it was for, how it nearly sucked us all dry, and why we should put it out of our misery."

"… expanding ocean water driven by climate change will drive up sea levels, on average, anywhere from 18 to 59 cm by 2100, depending on how successful we are at slashing greenhouse gas emissions. This rising water mark will erase several island nations from the map, and is likely to cause devastation in Asian and African deltas home to tens of millions of people."

"To accommodate unprecedented demand for mobile data and voice applications at SXSW, we are actively working this afternoon to add capacity to our cell sites serving downtown Austin. These efforts are ongoing, but we anticipate that customers should see improved network performance this evening and for the remainder of the event." Connectivity as utility, but prone to stoppage and overuse in unusual infrastructure-straining situations. Hmmm.

"People don't pay attention to novels. The socially important parts of American communication are not taking part in novels. You can write them but they are not changing public discourse. You can also say that everybody in society has moved up a notch and everybody just wants the executive summary."

"First, you must care about the people you are writing about, even if “care” means loathe on some level, while remembering that a monster does not consider him/herself a monster. Then you must deliver that emotional investment to the reader in words, sentences, paragraphs, scenes, and chapters that are coherent and interesting. I know this answer is useless, but it is still an answer." VanderMeer; educational even when he's taking the piss.